Richard Ruhr, a Franciscan priest, who did a comparative study of initiation rites discovered a remarkable similarity in the 'lessons of life' that such rites attempt to teach the young. He summarised them as follows:
• Life is hard.
• You're going to die.
• You're not that important.
• You're not in control.
• Life is not just about you.
They sound harsh and yet each one contains a spiritual truth, and a truth best grasped early. And yet, it seems, in our culture we want to hide these truths, especially from our children. So we feed them:
• Life can be easy.
• You can stay young forever.
• You are what's most important.
• You must stay in control.
• Life is mostly about you and your fulfilment.
Originally posted by Pianoman1You apparently live in the wrong culture. God so loved the world...
Richard Ruhr, a Franciscan priest, who did a comparative study of initiation rites discovered a remarkable similarity in the 'lessons of life' that such rites attempt to teach the young. He summarised them as follows:
• Life is hard.
• You're going to die.
• You're not that important.
• You're not in control.
• Life is not just about you.
They so ...[text shortened]... 's most important.
• You must stay in control.
• Life is mostly about you and your fulfilment.
The Instructor
"To meditate is to transcend time. Time is the distance that thought travels in its achievements. The travelling is always along the same old path covered over with a new coating; new sights, but always the same road leading nowhere - except to pain and sorrow. It is only when the mind transcends time that truth ceases to be an abstraction. Then bliss is not an idea derived from pleasure but an actuality that is not verbal.
The emptying of the mind of time is the silence of truth, and the seeing of this is the doing; so there is no division between the seeing and the doing.
In the interval between the seeing and the doing is born conflict, misery, confusion." Krishnamurti
* "Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, "Do it again"; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we." -G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
* "Love is not blind; that is the last thing that it is. Love is bound; and the more it is bound the less it is blind."
-G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
* "The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits." -G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
* "Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all."
-G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth,
and with their lips do honour me,
but have removed their heart far from me,
and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men:
Therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvellous work among this people,
even a marvellous work and a wonder:
for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish,
and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid.
(Isaiah 29:13-14 KJV)
"I once read the sentence 'I lay awake all night with a toothache, thinking about the toothache and about lying awake.' That's true to life. Part of every misery is, so to speak, the misery's shadow or reflection: the fact that you don't merely suffer but have to keep on thinking about the fact that you suffer. I not only live each endless day in grief, but live each day thinking about living each day in grief." -C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed
"It doesn't really matter whether you grip the arms of the dentist's chair or let your hands lie in your lap. The drill drills on." -C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed
"God has not been trying an experiment on my faith or love in order to find out their quality. He knew it already. It was I who didn't. In this trial He makes us occupy the dock, the witness box, and the bench all at once. He always knew that my temple was a house of cards. His only way of making me realize the fact was to knock it down." -C.S. Lewis